


acts of remembrance

by A_Confused_Kitten



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Henry is a BAMF, Hurt/Comfort, I cried writing this, Killian Jones does not, Liam Jones Lives, Magic, Non-Canonical Character Death, most characters are brief or mentioned, not a lot of details about it but he's a bamf, so please take some tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25215292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Confused_Kitten/pseuds/A_Confused_Kitten
Summary: "Pan took someone from you, didn't he?" The Prince asks, and there's a million ways Liam could answer.He could lie and say no, deny the very reason he stays in this cursed place. But then he thinks of the dozens of boys he's found and rescued, all because of his brother. He thinks of the crew he's lost to Neverland's cruel master and how cold it would be to throw that away.So when Liam answers, he does so truthfully. “Yes.”
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones & Liam Jones, Liam Jones & Emma Swan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	acts of remembrance

  
  
  


**i.**

In a kinder story, they live. Liam and Killian Jones, together, escaping the island hell-bent on revealing the truth. They spread the word of a cruel, unforgiving man, who’d poison the very land they fought for. Slowly, and all at once, the king falls.

This is not that story.

“Liam,” his brother breathes, his voice shaking, and Liam feels his heart start to crack. Killian is pale, and it doesn’t take an expert to see why. Dark lines stretch across his forearm, racing from a cut Liam can’t see. “ _Liam,_ ” Killian says again, and then he’s falling and-

Liam catches him, barely darting forward in time. Killian is limp in his arms, the poison spreading through his veins, but he’s still got that damned smile on his face, the one that looks just like mother’s.

“Killian,” he says, his breath catching, because he doesn’t know what to _do._ Killian, for all of Liam’s teasing, had always been the smarter of the two, at least when it came to academics. “I-” His voice trails off.

There is nothing left to say.

His little brother is dying.

Killian, who has always dreamed of a hero’s journey, who is the epitome of loyalty and bravery, who spent hours upon hours watching the stars and memorizing their tales because _, if not us, then who,_ is dying, and there is nothing Liam can do to stop it.

The poison is fast spreading, and the pained look on his brother’s face shatters Liam entirely. Still, Killian smiles, and Liam is determined to do the same. 

“I beg of you, brother, don’t tear yourself apart over this.” Killian says, his voice weak and his grip weaker.

Liam only gives him a watery smile. “Of course, little brother.”

Killian laughs. Liam fights back the tears. His brother always had been a survivor, and when death came calling, he laughed in the face of it. “Promise me you won’t go after the king,” he says, his gripping going slack. 

“I promise you, dear brother,” Liam answers, because what else is there to say? There’s no time for _I’m sorry_ ’s or _don’t leave me_ ’s or _please, just hold on and we’ll get through this._

There's no time left at all.

Killian Jones dies on an abandoned island, the words _good form_ on his lips and a smile on his face.

Liam is not a good man, taking too much after their father. He's smart and kind, yes, but when need be, he's always been too cold, too calculating.

That is- that _was_ the difference between them, him and Killian. Whereas Liam is quiet, Killian was loud and bold and impulsive when emotional, and this was where their mother's heritage showed through.

Afterall, Calypso wasn't a mere woman, nor did she have a royal name, but a goddess of the sea, and Killian had always been her favorite.

But his brother is dead, and matter how much he wants to, there's nothing he can do about the one who caused it. This is one promise he refuses to break, but dear god, does he _want_ to.

He _wants_ to fight back, to call the king a coward who'd rather poison his enemies than fight honorably, and a man unwilling to fight deserves what he gets. And the king is nothing but unwilling, always sending soldiers this way and that one without ever knowing the heat of a battle, nor the glint of a sword.

But he had promised, so the king, a coward he may be, is no target of his.

Still, Liam can’t just sit. He can’t just sail aboard his ship and do nothing, so he plots.

Liam plots and he plans, and it's not good form at all to watch the monarchy collapse, but he does it anyway. He spreads rumors and whispers among the ports his crew dock at, and each of his men further his reach. 

Everywhere he goes, Liam leaves behind a multitude of rumors of cruelty, of false nobility, of brothers lost to fate. And slowly, terribly so, the king begins to crumble. 

It's a gradual thing, his reign truly ending when his wife hears whispers of the deadly poison he intended to use. 

Slowly, surely, the king falls.

He stays in the Enchanted Forest, just long enough to decide the king’s replacement seems fair and just and everything a true leader should be, and then he’s leaving. Because every place here reminds him of Killian, and he’s not ready. He isn’t ready to face these familiar waters, from which upon his mother was born and his father still roams.

It takes him six years for him to find what he wants. 

He’s found people, yes, and he’s found adventure. Anything they had ever wanted, Liam finds.

He’s found a woman who desperately wanted to escape, desperate enough to beg a captain she’d never met to take her away, away from every damn thing she knew. Milah, a lonely wife with a cowardly husband and the poor, poor boy caught in between them.

Milah wants him to take her away. Liam refuses.

He knows the cost of abandonment, and it’s not something he’s willing to gift upon a young boy. So he says no and walks away without ever looking back.

But Liam is looking for something, something unattainable, but he’s going to find it. Or, more truthfully, someone to finds _him._

“William Smee,” the man says, “Collector of rare and hard to acquire objects. And I’ve got exactly what you’re looking for, if the rumors are to be believed.”

He gives the man an appraising look. “And in return?”

Smee only grins, the look somehow jagged and soft at once. “Simple. Let me sail with you. Your ship, the _Jolly Roger_ if I heard correctly, can travel through the realms, can’t she?” Liam nods. “There you have it. You gain another crew member to help with your needs, and I gain opportunities to collect things not from this realm.”

He thinks. He plans. Liam flashes a grin, one that’s tired and cold and sharp, everything it never should have been. “Then, William Smee, I do believe we have a deal.”

Only the ocean witnesses him slip the bean into the pocket of his coat.

**ii.**

This is what Liam knows.

He isn’t a good man, it isn’t in his blood to be one, but he _is_ a protector.

He’s a protector of the children lost among the streets, of the women desperate for shelter from their husbands, of the young people who looked society in the eyes and simply told it _no._

He’s the protector of a brother he’ll never forget, of a mother’s starry eyes and magic, of a father’s star charts and maps. There aren’t any instructions left to follow, just a legacy to protect.

And where else better to go?

It’s a cursed place, but a place that resonates deep within his bones, because he knows that under different circumstances, he’d never consider leaving its shores. The Lost Ones thrive here, where magic rules and time is nothing more than an idea.

Liam swore never to return here, but alas, here he is. It’s just another mission, he tells himself, and this is one he intends to complete.

With every passing day, the shadow drags more and more boys to the island, and more and more Lost Ones cackle as they hunt his men.

And with each passing sunrise, more lost boys join his crew. 

The first boy never tells Liam his name, always silent. The second calls himself Adriam, but answers to almost anything, short of the slurs the Lost Ones throw their way. Kai, the third boy, talks about the family he used to have, once upon a time.

His boys are lost, and it’s all Liam can do to chase away dreams of homesickness and loneliness, and await the day they either join him, or become truly _lost._ The ones that stay with him never become Lost Ones, never fall into that eternal bitterness that envelops them.

Because while the Lost Ones may be boys, they will forever be trapped in the memories of being abandoned, of being mistreated, of being lost. Forever stuck in their youth, they will never move on from the pain they carry on their shoulders.

And no matter how hard Liam tries, they will always be the ones who slipped through his fingers.

There is a boy who introduces himself as Baelfire, who’s bright and loyal and so much like Killian it hurts. He has the same natural aptitude for sailing, the same curiosity burning behind his eyes, the same charm.

He’s with them for almost three years, then suddenly, he’s gone.

The son of the Dark One and an adventurous woman is simply gone, as though he was never even there at all.

Liam bites back the grief, because while the boy was never his, the closest thing he’d had to a family since Killian was stolen away by a portal, one no one knows the cause of, and it’s all Liam can do not to cry.

This island has stolen another from him, and Liam knows Neverland isn’t done with him yet. 

( _He doesn’t notice the magic bean disappearing from its place, nor the missing charcoal sketch of a woman he once turned away._ )

But years pass, and the game changes. 

Pan is looking for someone, a boy tells him. Small and thin, it’s a wonder the boy, who can’t have seen even eleven summers, managed to escape Pan, but Liam brings him close and listens to everything he had to say. When the boy introduces himself as Michael, he smiles.

It doesn’t take long after that for a portal to open, a whirlpool of crashing waves and wild magic, and if it weren’t for the Pegasus Sail, the _Jolly Roger_ would have found herself in another realm. But five people have been deposited into the mermaid infested waters, and that simply wouldn’t do. 

“Lower a boat!” He calls, and within moments, there is movement. His crew is a well cared for weapon, a canon waiting to be fired, and he is the one behind it. When he gives an order, the spark grows and every crew member knows what to do, and this is no exception. 

The boat hits the water within a minute of his words, and not even two minutes later, five strangers are aboard his ship. None of them are familiar, but it’s been years since he’s left Neverland for more than a few hours, and even then, it’s only to return his boys to the realm they were stolen from, so he isn’t surprised.

His eyes meet the gaze of the older looking man, and Liam _knows._ He knows this man is Rumplestiltskin. It’s a fact, one that’s clear as day, because even if his appearance is more suited to another realm, there’s no mistaking it. His mother is Calypso, Goddess of the Sea, and her power is in his blood, and he _knows._

This is Baelfire’s father, and some part of him yearns to say something, but all the rationality he has left shuts that down in an instant.

The other four, however, hold themselves with a confidence only found in royalty. 

“And who do I have the pleasure of welcoming aboard my ship?” He asks, recalling every detail about interacting with nobility he remembered. Killian always had been the more sociable one, but Liam’s never been one for quiet consideration, and the strangers on his ship won’t change that.

A woman steps forward, a fighter cloaked in red leather and a protectiveness that Liam knows far too well. “This your ship?” She asks, and Liam nods. She returns it. “Does that mean you know where this is?”

Well, that is interesting. In all his years here, and Liam knows it’s been a few centuries, adults have never managed to find their way to the island, and no one arrives in Neverland by accident. But those aren’t thoughts he needs to voice, so he shoves them aside.

“Of course, m’lady. This is Neverland, home to the Lost Ones and, of course, my crew.”

She gives him a look that speaks volumes. “Neverland. As in, _Peter Pan_?” 

And doesn’t that name make him want to scream? Peter Pan, the demon boy, the one who’s cruel games and harsh whispers had cost him so, _so_ many things. But Liam only smiles. “Peter Pan, indeed.”

There’s so much more he wants to say, but Liam says nothing.

He is a child of the sea, and he will always be at an advantage. Here, in the middle of Neverland’s fierce waves and freezing waters, there’s no place he’s stronger. But these people on his ship reek of magic, of something powerful.

Distantly, Liam thinks it may be simple love, the same he’d felt for Killian, all those years ago, but the idea is gone just as quickly as it appears.

The group, he learns, are looking for a boy, and there's part of him that immediately links them to Pan. It's irrational, yes, even more unlikely than Pan actually _caring_ for the boys he calls his own. Because when they speak of the boy, when they speak of Henry, love drips through their voices, and Emma, the blonde, is more determined than Pan ever has been.

Emma Swan seems the type to fight through the realms to find her boy, while Pan hardly cares about the ones he has. Michael can attest to that.

Their quest is valiant, more so than many knights and sailors he’s known, and maybe this is why Liam helps them. None of them know Neverland, not like he does, and a promise from long ago rings in his ears. 

Liam isn’t going to let this island take anyone else. Even if these people are strangers, even if there’s nothing left for him to gain. 

Neverland has taken enough lives.

"Pan took someone from you, didn't he?" The Prince asks, and there's a million ways Liam could answer.

He could lie and say no, deny the very reason he stays in this cursed place. But then he thinks of the dozens of boys he's found and rescued, all because of his brother. He thinks of the crew he's lost to Neverland's cruel master and how cold it would be to throw that away.

So when Liam answers, he does so truthfully. “Yes.”

The Prince must see something in his gaze, maybe grief, maybe love, or maybe something else entirely, but he doesn’t ask anything more.

Slowly, slow enough to memorize each and every emotion that passes the Charmings’ faces, they make headway. There’s not a place the _Jolly Roger_ can’t travel, not a stretch of water where Liam isn’t on top, and because of this, the island is their playground.

Liam knows Pan. He knows his tricks and his games, he’s intimately familiar with the way Pan’s words seem to twist and manipulate, inspiring emotions you would never feel otherwise.

You don’t spend three hundred years on an island and ignore the creature who stalks the shore, and there’s no one who knows Pan better than Liam does. 

Late at night, when all of his men know better to be on the deck and his additional passengers are deep asleep, he climbs up the crows nest and watches. Watches the familiar stars dance across the sky in their timeless performance, and thinks about the world. About Pan and Killian and this strange family he’s brought on board their home.

Those nights, Liam swears he hears his brother’s voice in the wind and Calypso’s voice among the waves.

It’s those nights Emma Swan comes to him, sits by his side with an old flask in hand. He denies it every time, no matter the day’s events. Sailing while having alcohol is bad form, and more than that, it’s reckless, and these days, Liam Jones is anything but reckless.

“Why are you still here?” Swan asks, no, _demands_ him, and her voice fills with a steel resolve that puts even Killian to shame. “Your ship can travel between realms, and you don’t work for Pan, so why are you still in Neverland, Captain Jones?”

“A long time ago, I made a promise, m’lady.” Liam answers, looking very pointedly at the sea. “I’ll be damned if I break it now.”

**iii.**

In the end, Pan is defeated, and Neverland can’t decide whether to cheer or to weep.

Rain pours from the sky in heavy droplets, rushing around with the harsh wind that whips Liam’s face. Dead Man’s Peak stands taller than ever, the jagged rocks cold and uninviting, and poison drips from every plant in the dark jungle. _The Fates are angry,_ he thinks, and Liam knows he’s right.

This is the night Pan dies.

There’s no dramatic ending in store for the demon boy, the one who’s led so many people, child and adult, to their end.

There’s nothing but a single strike. In the heat of battle, everything freezes and burns all, all at once. The world stands still, and time watches with baited breath. Every soul on Neverland is left to wonder what happens next, and-

A blade is yanked from Pan’s heart, and Henry is the one left standing. _How poetic,_ Liam thinks, _that the one being that could give Pan life is the one who stopped his heart._

Blood stains the young boy’s hands but before Liam can step forward, before he can wipe away the crimson just like he had after Killian got into fights, Swan is at Henry’s side. “I’ve got you,” she says, and Liam turns when he hears the tears forcing their way to the surface.

It isn’t his job to worry over Henry, and his own boys need mending. 

That is the night Liam lets go.

The King has long since fallen and Pan is gone. Everyone who ever tried to lead them to their graves is dead, but Liam is the only one left. 

Their cursed father left them, their mother is one with the sea, and Killian waits in the stars, and Liam is _here_.

“It was my brother,” Liam says, and the room goes quiet. His crew already know this story, and it is one all his lost boys hold close, but the five strangers know almost nothing about him. He turns to Charming, a fleeting smile crossing his face. “That was what Pan took from me.”

“You would’ve liked him,” he continues, pointedly ignoring the silence. “He was a stubborn idiot more often than not, but damned if he wasn’t brilliant. He was loyal and kind, but he had our mother’s temper, lightning fast and quicker than the sea.”

He takes a breath. “You would’ve liked him.” A smile slowly fades away, and the tears finally come. “You would’ve liked him.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.
> 
> Please don't kill me. :3


End file.
